Switzerland to return $380million Abacha stole from Nigeria

The Swiss government has concluded plans to

return $380 million to Nigeria, which is part of

money stashed in Swiss banks by former

dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha while he was in

power.

Geneva prosecutors said today Tuesday March

17th that they ordered the money seized in

Luxembourg starting in 2006 & was officially

confiscated last year following an agreement

between Nigeria and the Abacha family under

which FG dropped its case against Abacha's son,

Abba Abacha.

Switzerland has previously returned to Nigeria

more than $700 million that Abacha stashed in

Swiss accounts. If the Swiss government makes

this new cash return, it would bring the total

amount of Abacha's loot returned so far to

$1.080 billion.

Switzerland gives back Abacha funds
Mr Abacha also held accounts in the US and
Austria
Swiss banks have agreed to give back to Nigeria
more than half a billion dollars looted from the
country by late dictator Sani Abacha and hidden
in their vaults.
The $535m tranche - $70m has already been
sent back - forms part of a $1bn package being
returned by a number of countries.
The deal was reached at a meeting in Geneva on
Tuesday, involving officials from the UK, Jersey,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland as
well as Nigeria and the Abacha family.
"The largest part of the Abacha assets blocked in
foreign countries, in excess of $1bn, are to be
transferred to the Bank for International
Settlemetnts in Basel, in favour of the Nigerian
government," the Swiss Federal Justice
Department said in a statement.
General Abacha died of a suspected heart attack
in 1998 after a five-year rule during which, the
Nigerian government says, he and his family stole
more than $3bn.
In doing so, he was carrying on a decades-long
tradition of brazen theft of the oil revenues on
which the public budget relies, a habit indulged in
by almost every one of the dictators who ruled
Nigeria for almost all its existence since
independence in 1960.
Red faces
While Switzerland has frozen $670m in total, UK
banks have been found with much more dirty
money - as much as $1.3bn - in their coffers.
Both countries were embarrassed by the 1999
discoveries.
Switzerland had enacted new rules in 1998, only
to have the chief investigator resign because he
claimed he was being starved of the resources to
do the job properly.
The UK authorities and banks, meanwhile, were
found to have been even less co-operative than
the Swiss - despite the latter's long and sullied
reputation for protecting allegedly stolen assets.
And according to the Swiss, at least a third of the
money that eventually found its way there had
already passed through banks in the UK, US and
Austria.
Another $100m or so has been traced to
Luxembourg and Jersey, also traditional havens
for private banking.
Family ties
The Swiss Federal Justice Department said
Abacha's family will get to keep $100m.
That, it said, was acquired prior to Mr Abacha's
term of office and according to the Nigerian
government "demonstrably does not derive from
criminal acts".
The family - which put much of the money into
accounts under names very similar to their own,
making investigators' lives much easier - has
fought hard to hang on to the money, with
lawsuits in a number of countries holding up the
return of the money.
But it has not got off scot-free, however.
One of Mr Abacha's sons, Mohammed, has been
in jail in Lagos since 1999 facing murder chargesSwitzerland to return $380million Abacha
loot to Nigeria